Amidst our tight labor market, our nation is facing pressing workforce challenges that demand urgent attention. Employers of every size and industry can’t find enough workers to fill open jobs — the latest data shows that we have 9.8 million job openings in the U.S. but only 5.9 million unemployed workers; eligible workers remain on the sidelines in need of skills training or support services to enter and advance in the labor market and the adoption of technological innovations continue to disrupt the way we work — creating an increasingly large skills-gap that is undermining our nation’s competitive edge and worker access to economic opportunity. To ensure our nation’s workers and businesses can succeed in today and tomorrow’s economy, policymakers must confront these trials head-on.
And some are. Last week PPI’s New Skills for a New Economy Project, had the privilege of partnering with members of Congress on the New Democrat Coalition (NDC) to convene a roundtable on workforce development.

The roundtable brought together Members of Congress, including Representatives Kathy Manning (NC-06), Salud Carbajal (CA-24), Hillary Scholten (MI-3), Gabe Vasquez (NM-02), Val Hoyle (OR-04), Lucy McBath (GA-06), and Donald Norcross (NJ-01). The event also included expert speakers from across the workforce ecosystem — representing the workforce system, community colleges, industry partners and intermediaries working to expand youth and adult apprenticeships. Roundtable speakers included: Portia Wu, Maryland Secretary of Labor; Steven Partridge, Vice President of Strategy, Workforce, and Innovation at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA); Patrick Combs, Vice President for Apprenticeships and Work-Based Learning at Job For the Future; Lateefah Durant, Vice President of Innovation at CareerWiseDC and Steve Perrotta, Director of Public Policy at Society for Human Resource Management.
The group had a holistic conversation about these pressing workforce challenges and ways in which the public and private sectors can work together to create innovative and effective solutions. Leaders discussed high-quality skill development opportunities; tackling barriers to employment; incentivizing cross-sector collaboration and the critical importance of robust industry partnerships. From this discussion, three themes emerged:
- Build Stronger Career Pathways for Youth & Adults: To address emerging skill gaps and ensure current and future workers are prepared for in-demand employment, Members and experts discussed the need to expand high-quality skill development programs across the U.S. Leaders emphasized the growing degree divide in our country — stating that while degree programs yield strong returns in our labor market, the majority of workers don’t earn degrees. As a result, in addition to ensuring higher education is more accessible, policymakers must commit to creating more high-quality alternatives to college that yield strong returns. The group talked about apprenticeship as a solution and how these effective earn-and-learn models should be expanded to serve more businesses and more people. Lateefah Durant, from CityWorks DC, discussed her work in implementing the CareerWise, youth apprenticeship model which has seen success across the country and has helped to expand opportunity for young people in D.C. through not only the necessary on-the-job training and related instruction but through social capital and network building. Lastly, the group discussed other more rapid reskilling efforts, like short-term credential programs. Steve Partridge, spoke to Virginia’s FastForward program and how state investment in these types of programs has allowed NOVA to help more students get in-demand credentials and jobs across the state.
- Move Toward a Skills-Based Labor Market: For decades, employers have used the degree as a proxy for job preparedness. To break down this barrier to employment, leaders discussed the need to move toward a more skills-based labor market — where someone is assessed by their skill sets and experience rather than their attained credentials. Portia Wu, Maryland’s Secretary of Labor spoke to Maryland’s efforts to remove degree requirements from government jobs as a way to attract diverse talent, expand access to good government jobs and model how this can and should work for other employers. Portia discussed how these efforts along with removing some of the requirements for federal contract work can create more opportunity for workers without degrees, returning citizens and other workers that face increased barriers to employment. Steve Perrotta from SHRM, reaffirmed Portia’s points stating that this is a huge priority for employers across the country. However, as with any new effort, leaders discussed that this will take time to get right. Not only do employers have to change practices and learn how to better market jobs and assess skills but moving toward skills-based hiring will require overhauling our nation’s workforce development system. This means a greater emphasis on industry-responsive education, training, and experience, like career and technical education and work-based learning, across K-12 and postsecondary education. Policies that promote competency-based education, offer prior-learning assessments, and expand career pathways will also be increasingly important so individuals can have more stackable, skills-based learning opportunities while also understanding changing labor market demands. Additionally, innovation around learning and employment records, which provide digital infrastructure to hold information about a person’s academic and industry achievements will be important to design and scale so individuals have a more accessible way to demonstrate their accumulation of skills, knowledge and experiences.
- Increase investment in workforce development efforts: Last but definitely not least, to do any of this effectively there needs to be greater investment in workforce development at the national level. Prior to COVID and recovery spending, the nation spent $149 billion on higher education versus $58 billion for workforce-related education and training. Since the latter figure also includes Pell Grants and veterans’ programs, Washington really only spends about $16 billion, spread across 17 separate federal programs that provide workforce-focused education, employment, and training assistance. Experts at the roundtable discussed how this is not sufficient. In addition, to the general disagreement with our nation’s inequitable funding for workforce, speakers elevated what needs to be invested in. Portia, discussed the importance of sector based investment — highlighting The Department of Commerce’s Good Jobs Challenge — as a way to build career pathways in high-demand fields while supporting the economic development of a region. Steve Patridge spoke to the importance of career guidance and ensuring community college students have access to career counselors as well as better labor market insights to make informed career decisions. And lastly, Patrick and Lateefah spoke to the growth and scale of apprenticeships in our country, for adults and youth alike.
Across these major themes, it was made clear that not one system can do this work alone. Instead we must break down silos between public programs and agencies as well as with the private sector to create more collaborative and aligned solutions that serve the needs of employers and workers.
The roundtable facilitated an illuminating conversation — shedding a light on potential federal actions that can solve persisting workforce shortages; our nation’s stagnant labor force participation rate and make it easier for employers and workers to keep pace with our rapidly changing economy. PPI’s New Skills Project looks forward to continued work with these Congressional champions and workforce experts to enact the policy changes needed to create more equitable economic opportunity in America.
